About Joel Plaskett
William Joel MacDonald Plaskett is a Canadian rock musician and songwriter based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was a member of Halifax alternative rock band Thrush Hermit in the 1990s. Plaskett performs in a number of genres, from blues and folk to hard rock, country, and pop.
Plaskett's songwriting frequently contains allusions to his home city, Halifax. With his band The Emergency, he has toured throughout North America and Europe with The Tragically Hip, Sloan, Bill Plaskett , and Kathleen Edwards.
Plaskett grew up in Lunenburg, a small town on Nova Scotia's South Shore. His father, Bill Plaskett, is also a musician, and was a cofounder of the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival. Plaskett learned to play guitar and write songs while listening to an eclectic range of music, from singer-songwriters such as Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to rockers such as the Sex Pistols and the Pixies.
Plaskett's family moved to Halifax when he was twelve; by the next year, he had formed his first band with friends Rob Benvie and Ian McGettigan. Initially, they called themselves Nabisco Fonzie. By 1992, they were a foursome called Thrush Hermit, with Michael Catano on drums.
Plaskett was the lead singer and guitarist for the Halifax-based band Thrush Hermit. Catano was replaced by drummer Cliff Gibb in 1994, the same year the band was signed to Murderecords. After two EPs, the group went on to release its full-length debut on Elektra in 1997--Sweet Homewrecker, which was recorded in Memphis with producer Doug Easley. The album did not do well commercially, and they were dropped by their label. The band would record one more album, Clayton Park, for Sonic Unyon Records, before quitting in 1999.
In late 1998, Neuseiland was formed by Plaskett of Thrush Hermit, as well as members of popular Halifax bands The Super Friendz and Coyote, the Euphonic, both of which had also recently broken up. Taking the name of the band from a Dutch children's book by Annie Schmidt called The Island of Nose, the band consisted of Plaskett on drums, Charles Austin and Drew Yamada on guitar, Andrew Glencross on keyboard and Tim Stewart on bass. They cited King Tubby, Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd, Ray's Chicken Pita and Willie Nelson as influences. The goal of the band was to mix conventional song structure with experimentation inspired by krautrock, stoogian protoplasm and the subtractive mixing techniques of "version" reggae. The band released one album, the self-titled Neuseiland, recorded and released on March 4, 2000. The band released an extended play, The Disappearing E.P., on December 8, 2001. Sessions for a third release, titled Ai Yi Yi, were recorded in 2002, but never materialized in an official release until 2014. The band broke up after performing a farewell show on January 6, 2005.
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